Alabama

Birmingham's Clayton College of Natural Health offers closing plan

View full sizeClayton officials proposed, in broad strokes, a "teach-out" plan that would keep some staff at work temporarily and enable an undetermined number of students to complete their degrees.

Administrators with Clayton College of Natural Health, an unaccredited Internet correspondence school based on Birmingham's Southside, met with state regulators Monday to propose a plan for closing the school, regulators said.

Clayton officials proposed, in broad strokes, a "teach-out" plan that would keep some staff at work temporarily and enable an undetermined number of students to complete their degrees. Clayton officials are expected to propose a more detailed plan by the end of the week, said Annette McGrady, a specialist in the private school licensure division of the Alabama Department of Postsecondary Education.

The private, for-profit college, which offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees in holistic health and nutrition, last week dismissed 30 of its 50 employees and began planning to close, school President Jeff Goin said. The school has more than 3,000 active students scattered across the United States, he said.

Goin said Friday that the recession had hit the school hard and was responsible for the closure. The decision to cease operations is not related to a new state law requiring schools that award degrees to be accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, he said. Clayton College has no such accreditation, but has an accreditation application pending with the Distance Education and Training Council. An active application meets the requirements of the state law, passed in 2008.

The school was founded by Lloyd Clayton, who also founded Chadwick University, another private Southside-based school. That school, which offered degrees in business, criminal justice and social and behavioral sciences and also was unaccredited, closed two years ago after state regulators revoked its license.